Lessons of a Time Crunch

So since the beginning of this month I’ve been under something of a time crunch because of events in my life. It isn’t exactly unexpected, things that are happening are mostly things I’ve expected would happen sooner or later, but it has seriously cut into the amount of time I have to write lately (although, admittedly, time I have free to write is not necessarily time I have used to write). Overall this has seriously hindered my ability to work on my second book.

That said, all is not doom and gloom. While the amount of writing I have done has been halved, I am learning through this process. It isn’t so much lessons that translate well into a list of things to do so much as mental discipline. I’ve learned that when I have time and ability to write I need to pounce on it and push hard. With less free time, I cannot spend as long waiting to “feel” like writing, so when I have time I go through my preparations and just start writing while trusting that the inspiration will follow. Largely it has.

So far the dividends have been limited, but it is teaching me to write faster without any dip in quality (at least that I can notice). Usually it takes me ~2 hours to write 1,000 words. Now I can sometimes do that in an hour, although not reliably. Usually it takes closer to 1hr 15min. Still, this means that once time frees up my productivity should really ramp up as well. I don’t think ALL of that can go into a single book, but that may just mean I start seriously taking on multiple projects at once, switching between them over the course of the day. Either way, it means more stuff will be coming out faster than I anticipated so long as I can keep this mental frame.